I'm kind of back. I'm really sorry, lots of stuff has happened. What was burnt from our house still hasn't been fixed because insurance companies suck and I just moved to Japan. I'll try to post when I can it's just that it's all still a bit hectic and everything is everywhere at the moment. Thank you to everyone for sticking around though.

Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.

Zack wasn't sure if he was happy with what he was staring at. Originally he had been glad that Cloud and Genesis were getting along, but now he wasn't so sure. He had gotten there before his usual training time with Cloud, so he had figured that the cadet would be in the training rooms like he normally was, he wasn't. Instead, after asking his other lovers, he had found them both in Genesis' apartment with the red general going through all of his materia and throwing certain ones into a box next to Cloud, while the cadet seemed to be fixated on them. Genesis always took special care with his materia, and Zack was obviously being ignored in place of the shiny orbs.

"Choco/Mog… I've never really used this one but I guess it would suit you."

Cloud didn't know whether to pout or laugh awkwardly at Genesis' comment as the General continued to go through his materia, still ignoring Zack's presence.

"Cloud~!" The puppy seemed to have finally gotten sick of being ignored and he had promptly pulled the much smaller cadet into his arms in a tight hug. "I only just got back and you're ignoring me for materia. You'd think you were a crow or something with the way that you're staring at it." He felt the cadet go slightly ridged in his arms and he stared down at him curiously. "Spikey?"

"You're probably squeezing him too tightly puppy, let him go so that we can see what we can equip onto him without him falling over and landing on his ass." Cloud relaxed slightly at Genesis' quick save and Zack begrudgingly let Cloud go.

"Zack pick up that box and we'll head to the training rooms."

"I thought that you were just going to equip materia onto him. Why can't we just do that here and spend some quality time with each other?"

"We need to test if he can actually use it all and how much he can actually hold on his person without being knocked out on the first hit. There's also the fact that I do not want him summoning a Chocobo in my apartment."

Zack pouted slightly but picked up the box anyway. Genesis led the way while the two trailed along behind him.

"So, how did your mission go?" Cloud questioned as he tore his gaze away from the materia that Zack was holding.

"Boring." The wolf sighed at the thought of it. "Those newbies had nothing on you. I mean why couldn't they all be all cute and chocobo like, like you are?"

Cloud briefly considered kicking Zack for a second but then decided that he didn't want to risk him dropping the materia and breaking it.

"I don't know why cadets are always so into staring at Cissnei as well. Maybe they don't know that she'd probably nail them in the head with a bullet if they tried anything on her."

"Cissnei?" Cloud didn't think that he had heard that name before and there weren't really that many employee's in Shinra.

"She's a Turk. Auburn curly hair, usually in a black suit. Not entirely sure what kind of monster she is. Every time I ask her she just gives me this look like I'm an idiot and then changes the subject. Never really seen her bring out her attributes."

Cloud remembered back to when he had overheard Zack about getting entry into the Turks and guessed that the woman that he had been with at the time was Cissnei.

"Turks tend to do that." Genesis broke into their conversation. "The less people know about them, the easier their job is. The only reason we all know Tseng's a fox is because he can change himself to the point where we don't know who he is anyways."

Zack pouted a little. "How come you never told me that?"

"You never asked, puppy."

Cloud could help but giggle a little at their exchange and Zack's lips turned up in a small smile. "So what did you get up to while I was gone Spikey? You must have done something amazing to get on Gen Gen's good side. What did you do, recite Loveless to him?"

"When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end. The goddess descends from the sky. Wings of light and dark spread afar. She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting."

Both Genesis and Zack stopped and turned to look at Cloud with surprised looks on their face.

"Don't tell me you actually quoted Loveless to him without the book in front of you to get him to get along with you." Zack wasn't entirely sure whether or not he was happy about this new development. He didn't need another Loveless fanatic.

"I only know the poem parts. I never learnt the lines to the actual play. I used to have a copy of the book but Reno borrowed it and still hasn't given it back." Cloud shuffled his feet a little at all the attention that the two SOLDIER's were giving him.

"At least your cadet has some taste. He knows good literature when he sees it." Genesis nodded approvingly before they started making their way towards the training rooms again. "Though I wouldn't know why you'd lend out your copy. I keep mine with me at all times and never let it out of my sight." Genesis patted his pocket where his copy resided.

"Gen gave all of us a hand written copy. He wrote out the whole thing for all of us. I think Seph and Angeal both keep theirs in their bookshelves and mine's somewhere in my room."

Genesis gave Zack a disapproving look. "I went through all the trouble to make that for you puppy and you can't even remember where you left it? What have I told you about taking better care of things that I've given you? You could at least put it somewhere where you'll know it's safe."

"At least it's safe somewhere in my apartment and not in my pocket where it could be singed or worse." Zack pointed out.

"I think I found your copy when we were cleaning the apartment Zack." Cloud said thoughtfully. "I think I put it on your bookshelf in the lounge."

"My lounge has a bookshelf?" The first class SOLDIER looked honestly surprised and Cloud sighed.

"Your coffee table has storage underneath it for books."

Zack just blinked owlishly at Cloud once before he mentally made a note to himself to check under the coffee table to see if there was actually storage space underneath it.

Once they got to their usual training room, Genesis swiped his card through and let the other two monsters in first before he followed after them. Zack put the box in the middle of the floor while Cloud started equipping his gold armlet.

"Stop right there brat." Cloud stopped short of snapping on the armlet. "Here use this." Something silver went flying in his direction and Cloud just managed to catch it. "It's a crystal bangle. It's got a few more slots than your gold armlet and since we don't know how much materia we can put in that sword you have, it should hold enough materia for you to actually have a decent amount on your person. We'll work on concealing materia later when we can figure out how much we can give you."

Cloud nodded his head as he snapped the new bangle around his arm. "We'll start with the big stuff then. All that summon materia that you have." Cloud carefully unequipped three few pieces of materia from his gold armlet and put them into the armlet he was wearing. While he did that Genesis pulled another five summon materia out of the box.

"Done?" He questioned and Cloud was quick to nod his head. "Right, now all of these." He held out all five of them and Cloud carefully picked up one and slotted it into the bangle. By the third one he could feel pressure slowly building up in his head and he stopped.

"What's wrong cadet?" Genesis questioned.

"Too much." He replied. "It's getting a bit too heavy."

Genesis looked thoughtful for a moment before he nodded his head. "Probably five is your max. We can probably substitute the weight with a MP/HP swap materia or a HP plus, but we don't want your magic power to go down that much and we still don't know how much stamina you have, but you'll be working on that with the puppy." Genesis looked over at Zack as if to confirm his statement and the wolf nodded his head in agreement. "Also those three that you took from your gold armlet. What do they hold in them?"

"Bahamut, Phoenix and Knights." Both Genesis looked honestly impressed and Zack let out a low whistle, no wonder Cloud never used that in the training rooms. Not only was there not enough room, but he could probably destroy the whole training room with little effort.

"You should probably leave Knights of the Round somewhere safe for now. Only bring it on field missions as a last resort. Un-equip it for now and we can fill up the rest of the slots to the point where you're comfortable with fighting with all of them equipped."

Cloud easily pulled the materia out of the bangle and immediately felt the pressure disappear.

"Knights of the round builds up a lot of mental stress when you have it equipped with a whole lot of other summons. You might want to keep a HP plus on you if you do think you need to carry it around with you."

"I've only used it once when I was younger. I nearly passed out. I haven't tried it since."

Genesis nodded his head. "You're older now. You've probably built up a lot of magic power as you grew up so you'd probably be fine with summoning it now. We'll try it out if we ever end up taking you out on the field. For now we'll see how good your control is."

Zack sat down on one of the nearby benches, looking slightly bored while he watched Genesis and Cloud switch around materia before the smaller monster started throwing spell after spell at a bunch of fake targets. Every so often Genesis would tell Cloud to put less magic into a spell or to stop holding onto it for so long. Obviously the crow could see something that he couldn't as well because every so often he would whack Cloud over the head and tell him to cut it out. The first time he did that Zack nearly jumped out of his chair to scold him, but Cloud sent him a look that told him to just stay there and they would continue on with the materia lesson.

Despite how boring it was, Zack had to admit that it was amazing watching Cloud fire spell after spell without tiring. About half an hour later Genesis' PHS started beeping and the older crow pulled the device out of his pocket. "Time's up. Time for me to head off." Surprisingly enough Cloud looked somewhat disappointed.

"Remember to keep practising with your materia while I'm gone. I'll probably see you next week puppy."

Zack looked a little confused at that. "Where are you going?"

"Mission in Gongaga apparently your parents want some information about how you're dealing with life without them from a source that isn't you." Zack pouted slightly and Genesis grinned before answering seriously. "I'm heading to Wutai, something about them wanting a bit more firepower just in case negotiations turn to crap. Sephiroth's apparently coming as well so it'll just be you and Angeal here."

Zack continued to pout and Genesis sighed before walking over to Zack. He reached out and started squishing the wolf's cheeks so that he couldn't stop pouting. "I apologise for leaving as soon as you came back. We'll have a proper talk when I get back. You can take care of your bratty Halfling without me breathing down your neck in the meantime." Zack glanced over at Cloud, who was conveniently looking everywhere else but at them.

"He's not a brat." Zack said as he batted Genesis' hands away from his face and stretched out his mouth to get the squished feeling out of them.

"So you say puppy." Genesis ruffled his hair before finally making his way out of the training room. As soon as the door shut Zack jumped off his seat and pulled Cloud away from the box of materia that was still sitting on the floor.

"Come on Spikey. We'll put that in your room later. We'll start working on your hand to hand for now and then we can go out and see if we can find somewhere that does awesome comfort food."

It was a bit weird to Cloud how Zack could just bounce back from most situations, the white crow felt like it had been eons since he had seen his mentor considering the amount of stuff that had happened while he was gone.